Delegate meeting minutes
Thursday 18th JUNE 2015 Wolverhampton, Bilston & District T.U.Council
Present: Sis Taylor(UNITE-CYW), Battell (NASUWT) Bros Kelleher (UNISON Gen), Childs (CWU), Beuno (UNISON Sandwell), Grant (NUT) Coates (UNITE) all were welcomed and introduced.
Apologies: Sis Halfpenny (NUT) , Kelsey (CWU), Bros J Grant (UCU), Marris (UNITE), Turner, Pugh & Cooper (UNISON Gen), MacMillan (CWU)
- Minutes of May delegate meeting agreed no matters arising
- Executive Committee report Executive Meeting again inquorate – new members needed
correspondence:
a) free stall @ Midlands TUC Chainmakers, details received
b) PSC – Palestine conference for UK trade unions London 4 July
c) TUC union reps courses Sept15-July16
d) Working Class Movement Library agreed £30 donation
e) Stop the War Coalition agreed affiliation £50
f) Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival £30 sponsorship agreed
g) £50 from Dudley NUT for Black Country People Assembly (30 April event) donation – £187 now held by us on their behalf
h) Campaign for TU Freedom AGM 27 June London
i) Pat McFadden response to Action For Rail campaign
j) TUC: TTIP euro parliament vote has been postponed, until maybe September. Responses to email only from one Labour & one ukip mep
k) Norscarf counter action to plan by EDL to demonstrate outside Waterworld, Festival Way, Festival Park, Stoke-on-Trent Saturday 1st August 1pm.
l) newsletters from affiliated groups – circulated at delegate meeting
m) sent: Art Gallery/ Paul Quigley re John Harris exhibition
n) to send: PSC affiliation £25; Wolverhampton May Day Committee £200 donation; Midlands TUC Chainmakers £100 donation; International Brigades Memorial Trust re-affiiation £30; Peoples Assembly re-affiliation £20; response to Msc student research TU & equality
4.a) delegates’ workplace reports:
NUT & NASUWT – some cuts but no major attack on terms and conditions yet. Tories want to remove rights of parents and communities to challenge academies. Street stalls done by unions. Academies finding need to join into groups to reduce waste (like under local authority control but without any democratic control). Hard for unions to engage with dozens of individual employers trying to introduce their own policies; unions working to maintain terms and conditions. Very hard to find people willing to become school governors. Schools, LEA and unions had a good relationship for many years locally. Academies shown to be land-grabbing for future sale.
£500 available from TUC grant this year for event around education, need to decide who would it be aimed at? Public,parents or teachers? Bro Grant, Sis Battell to meet with executive members to look into possibilities.
UNISON: one person/week being sacked for sickness currently – meeting sought re draconian interpretation of policy.
UNITE – 1year after Youth service privatisation by council, property speculators now own the youth service
b) Secretary’s written report had been circulated. People’s Assembly demo London 20 June, no PA coach from Wolverhampton now but places been given on UNITE coach 8am train station
- Speakers: Bro Kelleher, Sis Taylor gave a report on the Trades Union Councils’ national conference.
West Midlands TUCJCC representative election result; Dorothy Heath (Walsall TUC) 4 votes-elected; Nick Kelleher (WB&DTUC) 3 votes; Helen Harrision(N.Staffs TUC) 2 votes.
Motion to be sent to this year’s TUCongress was to seek the trades union councils’ delegate be a delegate to the conference and be allowed to move the motion from the annual conference. Bob Crow had passed a motion in 2013 but the General Council “had reservations” and took no action. It was again blocked at last year’s congress by USDAW, GMB and UNISON when a similar motion was lost in a card vote 2.9m to 2.7million votes.
Both CWU and POA continue to take illegal “wildcat” industrial action in successful defiance of anti-trade union laws.
There were 70 delegates in Crewe, almost half from the 24 county associations and the others from the 149 trades union councils. Motions were only submitted by county associations and so our delegate did not have the right to propose or second a motion.
We distributed Chainmakers flyers and sold £8 worth of our books and mugs - Any other business none